Numbering Love
by Whatsername Stardust
Summary: The story of Neville and Luna, told through a series of lists.
1. Ten Things Luna Knows

Ten Things Luna Lovegood Knows About Neville Longbottom (That no one else does)

His middle name isn't actually Frank. He doesn't have a middle name, but he tells everyone it's Frank because that's his dad's name. Once he gets out of school, once the war is over, he wants to have it legally added to his name, but he's afraid he doesn't deserve it. (But she knows that he does, and she reminds him all the time.)

He has a scar on his left shoulder blade, because when he was 6 his Uncle Albie tried to scare some magic out of him by pushing out a window. His entire family thought he was Squib until he busted a park bench when he was 8. (She can feel the scar through his shirt when she hugs him, and whenever she does she tells him that he's better than they all thought he could be.)

On the anniversary of the day his parent's torturing every year he has the same night mare. He watched his parents driven insane, stuck in a corner and he can't do anything about it. When he joins the DA, other people get tortured as well. (This year, Luna refuses to let him suffer it alone, since she knows her nightmares are worse during times of stress, and she sleeps in his hammock with him.)

Everywhere he goes he brings a small wooden chest that his father gave his mother on their first anniversary. It locks, and has an engraving of a lion on top. The box contains exactly 213 Droobles gum wrappers. Each time Neville visits his parents, his mum gives him a gum wrapper. He has kept every single one. He has never lost one, or left it in his pocket and washed his pants. (Luna thinks this is both the sweetest and saddest thing she's ever heard.)

He loves his grandmother, and he knows she's proud of him, but sometimes he wishes she was a little more vocal about it. He feels bad for wanting her to say it, but he can't help it that he feels unwanted sometimes. (When he tells her this, Luna hugs him close and tells him he's brilliant.)

His greatest fear is that he'll die in battle without making his parents proud, and without avenging them. He just wants to look in the mirror and feel he deserves to be their son. (Whenever he mentions this, Luna tells him that she has no doubt in her mind his parents would be proud of him already. Because he's fighting, and he is brave enough to keep going even if it means death or pain. She means it more each time she says it.)

He loves dancing. He continued trying to teach himself after the Yule Ball. He is best at the waltz. (He tells Luna this and blushes as if embarrassed, and she makes him teach her and he tells her he hasn't felt happier in months.)

He wants to have a family almost as much as he wants to make his parents proud. He wants to raise a child in the happier future he helped make. But the fact that that child will not have his parents in its life makes him sad. (Luna doesn't say anything about this, but she holds his hand and rests her head on his shoulder. It is the fourth time she sees him cry. It is not the last.)

He doesn't want to be an auror, and sometimes he feels guilty about not following in his dad's footsteps. He wants to take over for professor Sprout. He loves the school, it's his home. And he wants to help make it that way for other people. (Luna tells him that teaching is an admirable profession, and that she's sure his parents would be thrilled he wants to shape young minds.)

His favorite subject is herbology because his father, as he is told by his gran, was a whiz with herbology. When he finally got up the guts to ask out his future wife, he charmed the school roses to ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him. Working with plants makes him feel closer to both of them. (Luna clutches his hands and tells him that it's beautiful that he feels that way. He asks why she's crying and she shakes her head and doesn't tell him it's because he'll never love her the way his father loved his mother.)


	2. Ten Things Neville Knows

Ten Things Neville Longbottom Knows About Luna Lovegood (That no one else does)

Her mother had the same long, curly blonde hair. She hasn't cut her hair since her mother died, because it makes her feel more connected to her. (Neville smiles at Luna and tells her that her hair is beautiful.)

In her second year she jumped in the lake on a dare, because a fourth year said he'd tell people she was cool if she did it. She got hypothermia and was taken to the hospital wing and everyone laughed at her. Flitwick didn't get her in trouble because he thought she was trying to drown herself. (Neville tries not to laugh at her story but fails, and then tells her with a hug he's glad she gave up doing silly dares to please people, and that he's also glad she didn't drown.)

She got a week's worth of detention in her third year. A Slytherin pushed her over in the halls and stole her sketch book. It was the anniversary of her mother's death, so she hit the older girl with a body bind curse and left her in the hallway and ran to hide in the library. (Neville raises his eyebrows in shock, the thought of Luna hurting anyone so foreign, but she squirms under his gaze and he wraps an arm around her, telling her that everyone gets angry.)

When she casts her patronus, she thinks about when she was little, and her mother would brush her hair as she lay in bed and tell her stories until she falls asleep. Sometimes she would turn around and let Luna brush her hair. (Neville wraps her in a hugs and strokes her hair and tells her how glad he is she has those memories of her mother.)

There's a scar on her hip from when she was imprisoned at Malfoy manor. Bellatrix Lestrange had tortured her to find out where Harry was. She refused to give in and when Bellatrix cast the cruciatus curse, she tore her skin on the stone floor. (Sometimes when she falls asleep in his hammock with him, he can see the top of it over her bloomers. Whenever he sees it all he wants to do is hold her, but it also makes him angry, knowing that the witch who destroyed his parents could have destroyed Luna.)

She wants to name her first daughter Matilda, because that's her mother's name, but she's afraid no one will stick around long enough to want to have children with her because she's too weird. (Neville tells her that it's sweet she wants to honor her mother that way, and that any bloke would be barmy for not wanting to start a family with her.)

Her little toe on her left foot is crooked, because in her second year she was walking barefoot in the halls and a large seventh year stepped on her foot and broke her toes. That's why she's so good at bone healing spells. (Neville tells her maybe she should wear shoes more often and she just shrugs saying she'd rather not. He laughs at her.)

Her fourth year, an older Ravenclaw asked her to Hogsmeade on a date and she accepted, only to never find him and end up stuck there all day alone, and in the rain. She hasn't gone on a Hogsmeade trip since. (Neville hugs her and tells her that whoever ditched her was a dolt for hurting her and that she was too good for people like that.)

She has nightmares a lot, and has since she was little. They've only gotten worse since the war started and sometimes they wake her up, screaming and sweating, or crying and shaking. The night mares are usually just people she loves dying but she never knows if they're real until she wakes up. (Neville tells her that next time she wakes up from one to come sleep with him. No one should be that afraid and that alone. She takes him up on the offer every single time.)

She's never been kissed. And while it seems silly, she's afraid she'll die in the war never having been kissed. She doesn't want to, but she doesn't want to kiss a stranger either. (Neville tells her that it isn't silly, it's sweet. He's sure there are a lot of people who feel that way. He doesn't tell her how badly he wants to change that and he also doesn't lean down and kiss her right then, like he so badly wants to.)


	3. Five Things She Never Told Anyone

Five Things Luna Lovegood Has Never Told Anyone (Not even Neville Longbottom)

In the middle of her 6th year her patronus changed from a hare to a lioness.

Her mother and father were best friends before they fell in love, and she wants a love just like theirs.

Her favorite color is gold.

She purposefully chooses empty train compartments knowing he prefers almost empty ones.

She is madly in love with Neville Longbottom.


	4. Five Things No One Knows

Five Things Nobody Knows About Neville Longbottom (Not even Luna Lovegood)

He once tried to teach himself to play acoustic guitar

He successfully taught himself to tango

Once, he almost fell out of the window of the astronomy tower, but he caught himself.

He has a two year old Christmas present, one her never gave to its proper recipient, sitting in the bottom of his school trunk.

All of the above were misguided attempts to tell Luna that he loves her.


	5. Lost and Found

_A List:By Neville Longbottom_

_5- The number of times I have chickened out of telling Luna I love her_

_3-The number of times I have chickened out of just kissing her and getting it over with_

_7- The number of times in the past three months she has almost died_

_10- The number of times I have cried in front of her _

_9-The number of times she has cried in front of me_

_13- The number of times she has crawled into my hammock for comfort_

_365- the number of days this past year I have loved her._

Luna had found the half ripped shred of paper, in the familiar scrawl of her best friend, on her way out of the room of requirement at the start of the battle. She folded it carefully and placed it in her pocket, smiling. Neville was quite strange sometimes. She'd have to find him eventually and give it back. She drew her wand and walked silently out of the corridor into the chaos of the main halls.

Neville, meanwhile, was fighting his way through a barrage of death eaters to try and find Harry. He wanted to ask him what was going on, what was going to happen. He blocked a stream of red from one of the Carrows, and a stream of green from Fenrir Greyback, and bolted, slamming into a few Slytherins hiding under the stairwell.

"Neville! Ginny! Are you alright?" Harry's voice was shouting and they were suddenly face to face.

"Never better! I feel like I could spit fire! You haven't seen Luna have you?" he asked, juping in place.

"Luna?"

"I'm mad for her! I think it's about time I told her since we'll probably both be dead by dawn!" With that he ran off, leaving a bewildered Ginny and Harry with a knowing smile on his face.

Neville isn't sure when he fell in love with her. All he knows is that when she was gone and could have been dead, everything sucked. And it felt like there was this void in him that no one but her could fill. And then she was back and he was invincible. He thinks of her face, smiling at him, when he's afraid to swing up that sword and kill the snake. And she gives him the courage to do it.

Luna walks into the ruins of the hall. She knows what Neville has done and she cannot wait to tell him how proud she is. She spots him from a distance and he is surrounded by people telling him what a hero he's become. But she knows he hasn't become one. He always was. She sits beside him on the bench. No one else is sitting there, and both of them know it's because everyone who knows them know that the spot beside him will always belong to her.

"Do you know the first words you ever said to me were 'I'm nobody'?"

"Why do you remember that?"

"Because that was when I knew you were somebody. You've always been a hero Neville. You just wouldn't let yourself see it. Oh. By the way, I think you misplaced this." She removes the list from her pocket, surprisingly undamaged. He takes the slip of parchment and unfolds it. His eyes go wide and he stammers slightly.

"Lune-Luna. I.. I'm sorry, you weren't meant too… see this. I'm sorry." She leans her head on his shoulder and ignores his apologies.

"While I was gone, sometime around two weeks after term started, did your patronus change?"

"what? I mean, yeah, it did. But why does this matter?"

"I thought so."

"Luna, why are you talking about my patronus, shouldn't we be-"

"I'm asking because my changed about then too, unexpectedly. Though I was unsure as to why until I was brought back here and saw how you'd changed. It's a lion now, right?" Neville nodded at her, baffled.

"How do you know that?"

"Because." She says matter of factly "When I cast one for the first time with the new wand Ollivander made me in the dungeons, it was a lioness." He kisses her then, and it is not rushed, it is not hurried. It is slow and sweet and passionate and soft. And, above all, it is right. It is so right, in fact, that it is perfect.

Eventually, Luna learns about the time her tried to learn guitar, and he teaches her to tango. And he learns the empty train compartments and the fact that she wants a love like her mum and dad's.

There are no more secrets between them and there never will be again, because they love each other, and for once the two misfits have found something perfect and right and true.


End file.
